News in Brief

Sustainability and the Cash Cycle

Auriga, which creates omnichannel banking software, has published a white paper on a net zero cash management strategy. The paper starts by raising the question of just how green digital payments actually are before going on to focus on cash.

The paper makes the point that there are limits to how much banks can reduce the environmental impact of data centres and infrastructure run by third parties. In contrast, their access-to-cash channels and infrastructure is more directly under their control and any environmental improvement is building on the inherent environmentally positive characteristics of physical money itself.

Auriga identifies two major areas where banks can drive carbon footprint reductions in their access to cash operations.

• Review and renew their ATM and access to cash infrastructure to be greener. The European Central Bank estimates that 37% of the environmental impact of euro banknotes is attributable to the electricity consumption of ATMs. Banks can invest in new machines that consume less energy and deploy smart energy management features such as low energy LED lighting, ambient light sensing, and more efficient modules with smarter power supplies and electronics.
• Overhaul cash-in-transit operations to distribute cash more efficiently and focus on how money delivery trucks can consume less fuel or run on net zero fuels like electricity or green hydrogen. Smarter cash management systems can optimise cash deliveries, reducing emissions associated with the supply of cash to ATMs.